Prison places restrictions on jailed journalist Reeyot Alemu

Nairobi, September 16, 2013--The decision by authorities at Kality Prison to
impose visitor restrictions on imprisoned journalist Reeyot Alemu constitutes
harassment and runs counter to the Ethiopian constitution, the Committee to
Protect Journalists said today.

"We call upon the Ethiopian authorities to lift these latest restrictions and
allow Reeyot Alemu to receive all visitors," said CPJ East Africa Consultant
Tom Rhodes. "She is a journalist, not a criminal, and should not be behind
bars."

Reeyot, a critical
columnist of the banned private weekly Feteh, began a hunger strike on Wednesday to protest an order
by Kality Prison officials to turn in a list of visitors, according to local
journalists and news reports. The officials did not
provide an explanation for the request. In retaliation for the hunger strike, authorities
forbade her from having any visitors excluding her parents and priest, local
journalists said.

Two days later, prison
officials said she could receive any visitors except for her younger
sister and her fiancé, journalist
Sileshi Hagos, the sources said. Sileshi was detained for four hours at the
prison later that day when he attempted to visit Reeyot.

Reeyot stopped the hunger strike on Sunday, but
decided not to receive any visitors until the restrictions on her fiancé and
sister are lifted. The journalist is serving a 14-year prison term on vague terrorism
charges that was reduced in August 2012 to five years on appeal.

It
was not immediately clear whether the visitor restrictions were in connection
with an article
published by the International Women's Media Foundation last month that had
been written by Reeyot. It is also unclear if the journalist wrote the letter from
prison or if this was a translation of an earlier story. In the article, Reeyot
criticizes Ethiopia's anti-terrorism law, an overbroad legislation that was used
to jail and convict her for her critical coverage of the government.

Kality Prison Director Abraham Wolde-Aregay did not respond to
CPJ's calls and text messages for comment. Desalegn Teresa,
a spokesman for Ethiopia's Ministry of Justice, did not return CPJ's call for
comment.

The denial of rights to Reeyot runs counter to the Ethiopian
Constitution, which states: "All persons shall have the opportunity to
communicate with, and to be visited by, their spouses or partners, relatives
and friends, religious counselors, lawyers and medical practitioners."

In a December
2003 report,
the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment stated
that prisoners should be "permitted to have contact with, and receive regular
visits from, their relatives, lawyers and doctors."The same report stated that "access to the
outside world can only be denied on reasonable conditions and restrictions as
specified by law or lawful regulations."

This is the second
time in six months that the prison administration has put pressure on Reeyot,
according to CPJ research. In March, officials threatened
to put Reeyot in solitary confinement, according to sources close to her who
spoke on condition of anonymity. Officials accused the journalist of indiscipline, according to news
reports, a charge she denied.

In a report
issued the same month, the United Nations Special Rapporteur
determined that the rights of Reeyot under the UN Convention against Torture had
been violated on account of the Ethiopian government's failure to respond to
allegations of her ill-treatment. Reeyot had complained of mistreatment,
and her health had deteriorated while she was held incommunicado in pre-trial detention,
reports said.